Supplication
by Darkbrokenreaper
Summary: The Cloud Recesses are burning to the ground and Lan Wangji escapes into the forest to find God Wei Wuxian who promises to grant his wish in return for a price.


Gusu Lan was engulfed in flames. His home, his family, all of it was burned down to the ground and scattered to the four winds. Centuries upon centuries of their sect's lineage—their people, their way of life, their history—destroyed in a matter of hours. And there was nothing he could do but run like a coward. He had begged his uncle to stay and fight, to stand up against their attackers and defend their home but his uncle had driven him and his brother to leave, shoving as much as their sect's sacred texts and treasures into their arms as he could fit before hurdling them out of the boundary walls and into the surrounding forests.

He and his brother had been forced to separate, pursued by the Wen sect in vast numbers. On foot, with barely any strength left in the both of them, they were no match for their assailants. Both Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen knew the best way to throw them off was to split up.

The forest was large. Lan Wangji had been stumbling around amidst the trees on a broken leg for hours now. The fatigue was catching up to him but Lan Wangji knew he could not afford to stop. So lost in his grief, he initially thought the sight of the tiny dilapidated shrine was a conjuration of sorts from his stricken mind but as he neared the building, he could see that it was very much real.

The exterior wasn't much to look at, peeling red paint on the pillars and a roof that looked a rainstorm away from caving in on itself, but it was a solid structure and Lan Wangji needed a place to rest and regroup.

The musty interior was in a similar state of disrepair but fortunately, seemed uninhabited. A fine layer of dust covered the alters and the various pieces of broken furniture that scattered the dirty floor. It was hard to tell which deity this shrine housed, there were no effigies or iconography to indicate ownership on any of the alters or walls.

He shook his head as if to clear it. This wasn't the time to ogle at the shrine like some child. The throbbing in his leg was getting worse, adrenaline leaving his body and pain replacing it. Lan Wangji looked around for any sort of cloth. He could break down one of the chairs and splint his leg. In the morning, he could look for his brother and any survivors.

"It's been a long time since I've had visitors," a voice behind him spoke. Lan Wangji quickly wheeled around and nearly collapsed when the action sent a pang of thrumming sharpness through his thigh.

Where there had been nothing before, an unearthly beautiful man was lounging on the alter, the very picture of indolent decadence. His pitch black robes draped around his lithe form like shadows, slightly slipping off his milky torso to the point of indecency. When he tilted his head in curiosity, his long silky raven hair fell down like a waterfall over one slim shoulder.

Lan Wangji's eyes widened. He could barely breathe let alone speak. He had never seen anyone so scandalously clad and yet so alluring at the same time. There was a sort of magnetism surrounding the man like an aura. A moth to a flame, Lan Wangji was helpless to resist.

He caught himself stepping forward toward the being before he could stop himself. The god's lips, lush and full, curled up. Lan Wangji wanted to trace that curve with his fingers.

"You're one of those Lan Sect boys, aren't you?" the god's gray eyes turned bright silver with recognition and delight, "Oh, I've heard so much about you lot. Hey, is it true that you have your sect rules carved on the face of a mountain? All three thousand of them? How do they all fit?"

At the reminder of his decimated sect, a tightness made its way up Lan Wangji's throat. Grief sapped all of his remaining strength and he fell to the floor in a heap like a puppet with its strings cut.

"Everything is gone," Lan Wangji said in a voice barely above a whisper. "My home is gone."

To his mortification, he could feel the wet hot slip of tears falling down his face. He tried to wipe them away hastily with the edge of his dirty sleeve—to cry in front of a god, how shameful—but they would not stop, could not stop.

"Oh, you poor little Lan child." Jade white fingertips reached out to him.

Lan Wangji hated when strangers tried to touch him but for some reason he allowed the man to wrap his arms around him and pull him into his embrace. Something about the being seemed to radiate a deep sense of tranquility and Lan Wangji desperately soaked it up.

He buried his face into the god's shoulder and cried. He cried until his face turned red and his eyes felt swollen. What a sight he must have been but the god didn't seem to mind, pulling him even closer and running his hands across Lan Wangji's back in a soothing motion.

They stayed like that for a long time. It had been a quite a while since Lan Wangji had allowed himself to cry. He didn't know he still had the capacity to cry like this. It had been even longer since he had been held, so warm and soft and safe. Lan Wangji felt so weak but so protected in the cradle of the god's embrace. It could have been an eternity in Lan Wangji's perspective and a secret part of him wished it could always be. Gradually, Lan Wangji felt his tears dry and the tension leave his body. He relaxed noticeably into the man's arms and just reveled in the sensation of being held. It was… nice.

"Do you feel better now?" the god asked him. Lan Wangji nodded slowly before he realized how improper he must have been.

He quickly extricated himself from the god's arms. Almost immediately, he found himself missing the warm embrace but then chided himself for such unseemly thoughts. The god himself didn't seem to find offense, easily allowing Lan Wangji to disentangle himself without a fuss.

In his haste, he pulled at the muscle of his leg causing him to hiss in agony. His wound was throbbing and felt hot.

"Oh, you're hurt," the god observed with a tut of sympathy. Before Lan Wangji could blink, the god pressed a glowing hand to Lan Wangji's leg. His porcelain fingers glowed with a soft pulsing light and an unsettling feeling of his bone snapping back in place ran through his body.

His leg was healed in short order. Experimentally, Lan Wangji stretched out the limb, testing its mobility and found that everything was in perfect working order. His golden eyes slid back to the deity who watched this with a gentle expression.

"Thank you," Lan Wangji bowed before the god.

"No need for thanks, little Lan," the god chuckled in amusement.

Lan Wangji looked up. "Who are you?"

"Hmm," the god tapped his lip in thought. "Well, I guess you can say that I am a deity of sorts."

That explained nothing and Lan Wangji narrowed his eyes.

"What are you the deity of?" he asked suspiciously.

"Nothing important," the god answered, holding his hands up in surrender, "I'm a minor god really."

Lan Wangji doubted that immensely. Gods required followers, believers to exist. And yet this god was here, in this abandoned shrine, and still corporeal. Clearly, he was a being of immeasurable power or something much more insidious.

"What is your domain?" Lan Wangji questioned further.

The god smiled, apricot seed lips stretching wide.

"I grant wishes."

Instantly, Lan Wangji was wary. He had heard stories of demons masquerading as gods, promising everything and granting wishes only to claim their victim's soul as repayment. It must have shown in his expression because the deity burst out into peals of laughter.

"Oh relax, little Lan child," the god wiped his eyes. "I'm not a malicious spirit. If I meant you harm, don't you think I would have done something by now? Would I have actually healed you if I truly wanted you dead?"

This was true. Lan Wangji was a vulnerable cultivator with a broken leg and nowhere left to run. He wouldn't even be much of a fight. Certainly, the supposed god would not have healed him.

But a lifetime had taught him never to trust such beings, especially the one in front of him whose every movement seemed designed to tempt Lan Wangji. The deity was bewitching and Lan Wangji was afraid that he was helplessly in its thrall.

"Now then, you seem to have a wish that I can help you grant," the god's eyes turned into crescents, "But my services don't come free."

The words sobered him.

He did have a wish. Lan Wangij was not one for revenge. He had been taught to abstain from worldly desires such as malice and greed and sin but as he remembered what his home had become, a dark fury rose in his lungs, strangling his chest until he could feel nothing but hate.

His hands balled into fists. His father, his brother, his family, his sect. He wanted retribution and this god was offering that and more.

This price. He would pay it.

Lan Wangji swallowed heavily and steeled himself, "What do you want?"

To his annoyance, the god patted his head like he was a child. Red suffused Lan Wangji's cheeks in embarrassment. A large part of him wanted to slap the god's hand away from his head but a smaller, secretive part reveled in the attention and sought to seek even more of the god's touch. He squashed that desire down immediately and stared resolutely at the deity.

"Please visit me once in a while and help me keep up maintenance of this shrine," the god gestured at their derelict surroundings, "This place has gone to pieces recently since my last assistant upped and went to start his own sect. I could use another pair of hands around here."

The stiffness in Lan Wangji's body snapped.

Lan Wangji blinked, nonplussed, "That's it?"

"That's it!" the god grinned, bright and beautiful. Lan Wangji was left stunned and not just from how enthralling the god was though he was the most alluring being Lan Wangji had ever encountered.

Of all the requests Lan Wangji had expected it, he hadn't been expecting this. It seemed too good to be true. The god just wanted a helper? Surely there had to be something more.

"Nothing more!" the god chirped cheerfully and Lan Wangji realized he voiced that last thought out loud. "You don't know how hard it is to find useful help out here nowadays. Even harder to find someone as pretty as you."

Despite himself, Lan Wangji turned pink at the praise and the way the god looked at him with sly mercurial eyes. Focus, Lan Wangji he scolded himself internally.

"Do you agree?" the god held out his hand.

Lan Wangji had nothing left to lose. He took that beautiful slender hand in his own. Silver eyes danced in amusement and approval as those divine jade fingers curled around his own.

"I agree," Lan Wangji answered. The point of contact between their hands sparked. A contract being made.

"What is your name, little Lan child?"

"Lan Zhan, courtesy name Lan Wangji," Lan Wangji intoned and he felt the energy coursing through his body.

"My name is Wei Wuxian," the god's smile grew even wider, more wicked, and his eyes were sparking crimson red, "Now then Lan Zhan, courtesy name Lan Wangji. Tell me your wish."

* * *

The Nightless City burned into the night.


End file.
